Langley resident Cran Campbell has learned to keep a wary eye out for internet postings that refer to him by name. He recently discovered text from a newspaper story about his online campaign against hate speech is being used to generate visits to porn sites. Dan Ferguson Langley Times

When Cran Campbell saw an excerpt from a newspaper article about him on Google redirecting whoever clicked it to an internet dating website, he thought it seemed odd, but not especially offensive.

“What would that article have to do with dating?” the 69-year-old Langley resident wondered.

Then he clicked on it.

“This is not a dating site,” the web page said.

It went on, in fairly crass language, to describe what it was actually intended for.

“They wanted you to sign up for a membership,” Campbell noted.

There was no sign of the newspaper article, which was about Campbell’s campaign against online hate speech.

Instead, it had been built to deceive online search engines.

He’s since found at least three other sites where the text of the article pops up in the Google search engine for sketchy sites that have nothing to do with news or fighting hate speech.

“They’re taking my name and linking it with pornography.”

Campbell has emailed the newspaper in question about the misuse of its article, advising it of a potential copyright violation.

Online security experts have warned that internet readers need to pay careful attention to what they click on, especially web addresses, because unscrupulous website builders will use fake links to pose as something else in order to lure people to visit their sites.

During the last U.S. presidential election, for example, some foreign sites were pretending to be news sites and making up provocative stories about candidates in order to get people to click on their pages, which were set up to make money from online advertisers by charging a fractional amount for each page view.

Among other things, such sites can also contain malware that will masquerade as a sign-up or computer utility, anything from programs that can steal passwords to highjacking the computer so it becomes part of a networks used for illicit activities like denial of service attacks on websites.

Campbell has been keeping a wary eye on internet activity that identifies him by name ever since some internet trolls tried to link him to sex-related criminal acts.